Physics Prof said: I have tried to reach the orange-glow using 120V grid here in the US, but have not been able to reach the orange glow with just 120V from the mains (plus unfiltered rectifier). You have 240 Volts coming into your distribution panel. Your dryer, electric range, electric water heater and central air all use 240 Volts. The pole transformer that stiffens the line for your group of houses is a center tapped transformer with 120 volts on each side, 240 across the windings, and the center tap is the neutral. Have your electrician install a 240 volt outlet for you, or use a step / isolation transformer from the 120. All: when doing these experiments I highly recommend local fusing or circuit breaker, so you don't take out your Wattmeter in the event of a short. A Variac or light dimmer can be used pre-rectifier to provide some degree of control to the input power. Be sure it can handle the initial power. May aid in finding the sweet spot. tinman: Next run turn your scope on and use a sniffer coil of a 2-3 turns. What is the bandwidth of your scope? I doubt that you will see any of the very high frequency stuff but it may show some lower harmonics. A current transformer hooked to your scope with one of your AC mains passing through it would tell much about the quality of the current being drawn. I suspect there are high frequency components from the underwater arc that is making it very difficult for the kWH meter to read correctly. This problem can be eliminated with a filter capacitor on the output of your bridge rectifier. As it sits without a storage / filter capacitor, the arc is being interrupted and extinguished at 100 Hz rate. With a capacitor providing pure DC there is the possibility of a continuously struck arc. This may be good or bad and is to be determined.
« Last Edit: 2013-04-21, 17:08:42 by ION »
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